“Make me happy, Strider.”
Hell. With a strangled growl, he crashed into her lips. Hard and raw and needing to draw out everything she was from the kiss. Everything he wanted from her.
His lips moved down to her neck, hungry, bruising, and he couldn’t stop. Her head stretched back to the side, giving him better access as she grabbed his hand and pulled it upward, setting it fully on her breast.
He needed no further direction and pulled his right hand from her hair, pins dropping as her hair fell, and he worked the laces on the back of the dress.
Dropping forward onto his knees in front of her chair, he pulled down her dress, her chemise, her stays. His lips found her left nipple, teasing it as he worked free her left boot, then her right.
His hands went up under her skirts, tugging down one stocking, then the other.
Not sitting back and enjoying it as he wanted her to, her own hands were busy unbuttoning his waistcoat, his trousers. Ripping the lawn shirt up over his head. Every motion sent a panted breath into her chest and thrust her breast deeper into his mouth.
Sunshine, the taste of her skin, the hard bud of her nipple fighting against his tongue. He moved to her right breast, working it until her hands threaded into his hair, gripping his head and pulling him away.
She leaned down, kissing him. A raging storm, all of the agony he knew she suffered in her heart spilling from her. Letting him take it. Take it all.
Without breaking the kiss, he stood, pulling her upright with him. Her clothes fell away from her body into a heap on the floor, and he worked off his boots and trousers.
Naked, both of them, and she pressed her body into his, his cock jabbing into her belly. Every curve, every speck of her skin a cool balm to the heat pouring from him.
He picked her up, moving to the bed, and he dropped the both of them down onto it. His hand instantly dropped to her folds, finding the exact spot he identified the other day.
She instantly curled about him, her body coming alive. So damn easy. So ready for him.
His lips worked their way down to her chest, taking a breast into his mouth as he stroked her. Slipping two digits inside of her, drawing her juices forth, playing with how each swipe of his thumb against her nubbin could get her to groan. How every time he slicked one finger, two, three into her, she bucked under him, wanting more.
For as much as he loved drawing this out, her body writhing under him, she started panting, the groans turning into screams as he worked her body.
He set his teeth about her nipple and flickered his thumb hard across her nubbin and she screamed, her body exploding under him as she came.
With his fingers still drawing wave after wave from her, he lifted his head to watch her. The beauty of the release on her face. Still in the throes, her body vibrating under him, she opened her eyes to him. “I want this. I want you.” Her words desperate between gasps for breath, she clamped her hands onto either side of his face. “You. Now.”
No force against it, he followed her order and slammed into her, breaking the barrier he knew would be there. Quick and fast, not delaying the torture of it.
A yelp cut from her mouth as her hands wrapped around his neck, gripping onto him for stability. Then her hips started to move on their own, desperate to draw out her pinnacle, her body still shuddering around him in wild swells.
Each surge a vise on his control, tightening and tightening until he was ready to snap.
He withdrew, then slid back into her, not as hard, even as he wanted to drive so deep into her he would never be found. Again. Again.
The last semblance of his control frayed, deserting him, and he picked up the pace, thrusting faster as his hand went under her left thigh and lifted it high to gain better angle into her depths.
Her nails cut into his back, her hips still grinding against him, and it sent his entire body spinning into a raging storm—fire and lightning surging through his veins.
He shattered, his body ripping into hers with surge after surge from the root of him.
No world except this one. This one where he was lost with Pen. Lost with what her body did to his.
Lost control.
{ Chapter 15 }
His arms barely holding him up, Strider’s muscles pulsated viciously, his body and limbs wrapped in everything that Pen was. Still inside of her, residual agonizing shots of pleasure continued to dance along his cock.
And yet he was frozen. Afraid to move.
What the hell was that?
Thunder and fire and the crashing of the sea in his chest. And then moments, glimpses of calm. Of peace between the waves and storm. Slices of serenity he wanted nothing more than to savor.
He’d lost all ability to curb himself, again. Didn’t even pull out. Came so hard he’d feared he’d torn up her body from the inside out. All of it harsher than before.
Worse yet, he didn’t think he could stop this—this visceral need for their bodies to be entwined.
Hell. And now he was crushing the living breath out of her.
He flipped them over on the bed, dragging her body with his so she splayed on top of him, their arms and legs still tangled.
Minutes they lay there, her skin twitching against his. The clouds of heaven floating them down to earth. Down to reality.
Her lips moved against the base of his neck. “You’re good at making me happy.”
He chuckled, his chest sending her head bobbing up and down.
With a small groan, she shifted, her left hip sliding onto the bed next to him, her right leg curling up atop his legs. Her torso still draped along him, her lips went to his skin before she set her cheek into the center nook of his chest. “My mind gets me into trouble.”
“Your mind?”
“Yes, my mind—you know that of me—I’m a dreamer and I wanted so badly for my mother’s story to be your parents’ story.”
His right hand went into her hair, pulling free the remaining pins that still dangled from the loose strands. “In what way?”
“How they left England so that they could be together—that is what they always told us. And it always struck me as odd—for how much they both spoke of England with love in their eyes—it was more important for them to leave so they could be together. That’s what I wanted for my own mother. I wanted that story for her.”
“I think—no, by now, I know it, for I’ve seen it all over this land—my parents were the once-in-a-century exception. Their love for each other, for us. It wasn’t normal and they knew that. That’s why they left. Your mother wasn’t as lucky.”
Pen nodded, her cheek rubbing against his chest as her fingers traced figure eights along his abdomen—so lightly it almost tickled. “Do you know what I always think about when I think of Mama June?”
“What?”
“It is that moment that your mother set us down on the street outside our house when it was burning. She set us on our feet, pushed us together so we held onto one another. Kissed you on the head. Kissed me. And then turned around and ran back into that fire to get your father. Do you remember what she said?”
His eyes closed, his hand stilling in her hair. Of all the moments of the past, that was the one he wanted to forget. Of course, it was the one she held on to. He drew a deep breath. “She said, ‘I’m getting Papa.’”
Pen nodded. “Those three words and that was it. There was no hesitation in her voice, no fear. Just impenetrable certainty that she would reach him. Save him. It was the bravest thing that I’d ever seen anyone do. I always wanted to be her. How she loved us so fiercely. How she loved your father. She ran into fire for him.”
“And she died.”
Her hand flattened on his stomach, the cool of her palm soothing against the heat of his skin. “She did, but she did it for love.”
She shifted, craning her neck so she could look up to his face. “That was what I wanted to find in Bedfordshire, no matter if they took to me or not. I wanted that for my mother. To find out that she
had been loved so desperately the only choice was for her and my father to run away together. And then the only thing that could have parted them was a terrible tragedy. I wanted her to be loved. I wanted her to love me.”
He met her gaze, both of his eyebrows slanting inward. “You don’t know that she didn’t love you.”
She shrugged, her face dipping back down so he couldn’t see it. “I know she was in Belize by herself, giving birth alone, dying alone. No one there that loved her. I can imagine it. No wonder she slipped away so easily. There was nothing to tether her to this earth—just a screaming babe that had sucked the life out of her.”
“Pen—you don’t know that. She could have loved you more than anything. It is quite possible she went to Belize to get you away from her family. We’ll never know, but don’t assume the worst just because of how her family is.”
“They were quite awful.” Her knee slid up along his leg as her fingers tapped on his belly. “I am still trying to place in my mind the horridness they unleashed on my mother. But I refuse to manifest any excuses for them and their actions.”
Strider nodded. The first sensible thing he’d heard from her lips in regards to her mother’s family. “They deserve every ill thought you have of them.”
She looked up at him, a teasing smile cutting across the seriousness of her face. “But you won’t torture them?”
“They deserve it, but I will hold myself back unless you request it of me.” His hand slid down her spine, trailing along the bumps, memorizing each one. “I don’t know what is worse, to be banished from your kin because they are determined to deny the past, or to be exiled because of what you would ruin. Your family—you would have only brought them joy. My father’s family, I would only bring them destruction.”
She pushed herself upright, her legs tucking around her body as she turned fully toward him. Her perfectly formed breasts sat in front of him, making his cock twitch.
But no. She would be sore.
He’d almost forgotten that, what a virgin was. The future would hold hours-long sessions of her lips and legs and breasts, and his cock slamming into her so hard she’d draw blood on his back. But not now. Not for another six hours, at the minimum.
Her hand landed on his bare chest. “Destruction? What are you planning to do to your father’s family?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or what have you been doing? You told me you wouldn’t rest until everyone in that family is a pauper.”
Strider tucked his left forearm behind his head on the mound of pillows propping him up, ignoring the suspicion in her eyes. “I won’t rest. I haven’t.”
“What have you done?”
“I started with the fringes—the cousins—the easily corruptible. Those on the periphery of a duchy are particularly desperate—so close to power, yet so far removed from it. They tend to think of it as their own. Entitled.”
Her head snapped back, her face blanching. “Duchy? You never said anything about a dukedom.”
He shrugged. “I never knew when we were children. For all that my parents kept from us, that was the one thing I wasn’t expecting when I came to England and searched for my father’s family.”
Her hand splayed on his chest lifted away and clasped to her throat, her words halting. “And that is where your father was and you are as well? Along the fringes?”
He met the sudden fear in her eyes straight on. It was time she knew. “No. My father was the heart of it. The next in line to the dukedom before he left England with my mother.”
Her jaw dropped slightly as her body swayed to the left. “And your family didn’t track him?”
“No. From the rumors I uncovered of that time, my grandfather disowned my father—and my father hated him just as much and was determined to escape from under his fist. So my father disappeared from England and my grandfather swore he would declare my father dead. My grandfather died years later—not long before the fire that took my parents. The cousin that was next in line to the title had my father declared lost at sea and dead as soon as he could. My grandfather never went through with it.”
Her hand at her neck slid upward, her fingers partly covering her mouth that hung ajar. Her voice squeaked out. “You’re telling me you’re a…a duke?”
He shook his head. “No, not technically. Though my bloodline tells a different story.”
“And what have you been doing to them—the family?”
His look went upward to the dark blue canopy of the bed as he ticked off the notes of revenge he’d accomplished thus far. “Well, five of them have lost so much at various tables in gaming hells I own that the duke has cut them off—but not before he paid off hefty debts into my coffers for each one. Two of them are now sitting in debtor’s prison. One removed himself to America to try to forge forth in a new life. That one has spunk—he was young and full of youthful idiocy, but at least took responsibility for his actions. The other two were forced to marry hideous women with adequate dowries. One of them has already gone through his wife’s money, though, so that one is unfolding. Of the other cousins, I’ve worked on them, one, by one. Ostracized them and their families from society by well-placed scandals. Several duels that didn’t turn out well. Wherever I have found a weak point, I have utilized it.”
Pen’s hand fell from her face, her eyes wide as her mouth fell even farther ajar. “That’s horrible.”
“That’s justice.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s mean and petty and vengeful.”
He shrugged. “It’s all I have—it’s all they left me with. After they threw me out of Leaven Hall, I went to all of them—all of them to tell them of my father. And to a one, they are cowards. None of them would stand up to the current duke. They were all too worried about their own position in the family—how close they were to inheriting if a series of unfortunate accidents happened. So, revenge was what I was left with. And I still have the future ahead of me. The center.”
“The center?”
“Yes, the duke. His downfall will be the sweetest.”
“What are you planning to do?”
Strider’s voice dipped into a hardness that punctuated each word. “Take every last shilling. Lure his far-too-young wife away from him with several handsome, well-placed footmen that will be more than happy to attend to her every need. Saddle him with children that are not of his blood. Set mistress after mistress on him that will play with his mind, then leave him. Leave him with nothing but regret until his dying breath.”
Pen’s gaping mouth had closed, the look in her green eyes suddenly unreadable. She moved upward on the bed, her shin sliding along his torso as she set her face in front of his. “But that…that is all hate. When are you going to stop? Stop living for revenge? Stop and see what’s right in front of you now? What you could have—happiness—if you just stopped? I have always been waiting for you.”
The side of his mouth twitched. “And I have always been trying to forget you.”
She leaned forward, her stare slicing him in two. “Why do you say these things to me?”
An apologetic half smile lifted his right cheek. “It lessens your expectations of me.”
“I may despise what you have become, the hate in your heart, but I will always have high expectations of you.”
“Ones I cannot live up to.” He sat upright, his gaze locked on her stare. “You live in the world of right. I live in the world of wrong. There is no space for the two of these to be together.”
“No space?” Her eyebrows flew upward. “There was in this bed.”
He had to give her that.
In that bed—that was the one and only place that he had ever felt five minutes of peace, of calm.
He couldn’t afford that. Peace. Calm.
He had to keep moving. Moving so nothing would catch him. Moving so Pen and her world of right could not catch him.
So the fear couldn’t catch him.
For what he’d felt with her thirty minutes ago when he came—the world more right tha
n it had ever been—terrorized him more than anything.
He reached out to her, his palms sliding along her back as he pulled her to him, clasping her to his chest. He leaned back on the pillows, silent, for he refused to argue the merits of right and wrong with her.
An argument that would go nowhere.
She leaned into him willingly, apparently coming to the same conclusion.
The reality of what he’d been trying to ignore for the last half hour sank into his chest.
This could be nothing more than a snag. A short-lived affair that they both escaped from before it did more harm than good.
He couldn’t have Pen and he knew it. They lived in different worlds that would never intersect.
But even more grievous, if he did have her, he would fail her again. Just like he did when they were nine. One way or another, he’d fail her.
He was sure of it.
{ Chapter 16 }
Pen looked out the window of the room they had stayed in at the coaching inn, watching Strider talk to his driver on the street outside.
Even from this angle, he took her breath away. So many years had parted them, but having the last few days with him it was like her soul had found its place in the world again.
Which only made what she had to do next brutal. But she didn’t have a choice. Not after what he told her last night.
She owed him this, no matter how it might break her.
With a nod to the coachman, Strider turned around and entered the inn.
She watched the street for a few more seconds before dropping the lace curtain back to its place in front of the glass. Slowly, her fingers tapped on the tightly folded paper in her hand and she spun on her heel. Her stare landed on the door as she took several deep breaths.
Even as she’d locked into her mind everything about Strider this morning—the curve of the muscles on his upper arms, how his hair felt in between her fingers, his scars, how his left cheek would get the slightest dimple when he was planning something wicked upon her body—she’d been dreading this.
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